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Tag Archives: travel

In February 2004 we took our three children out of school for two months and traveled in India, Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong & Tokyo. 38 days, 37 hours on a plane, 23 hours in an airport, 20 time zones, 35 hours of driving, 10 hours of animal riding (specifically camels and elephants), 190 malaria pills (38 each), 360 antibacterial Handi-wipes (15 boxes), 2 bottles of Purell, and 5 cuisines later, we flew to Hawaii for a “vacation”. This post is part of a series on that trip.

When my husband and I were in Jaipur, India with our three kids, we went to an Elephant Festival, which is held annually to celebrate the Hindu holiday of Holi. The religious significance of Holi completely eluded us as it seemed to consist mainly of young men squirting water on each other, followed by handfuls of brightly colored powered paint; or–to be more expedient–pre-mixed water and colored paint. The paint stains do not come off your skin for up to two weeks, and do not come off your clothes ever. The frequency with which people (do not) bathe or change their clothes became immediately apparent as we saw paint-splotched skin and clothing for days afterwards. Continue reading →

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In February 2004 we took our three children out of school for two months and traveled in India, Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong & Tokyo. 38 days, 37 hours on a plane, 23 hours in an airport, 20 time zones, 35 hours of driving, 10 hours of animal riding (specifically camels and elephants), 190 malaria pills (38 each), 360 antibacterial Handi-wipes (15 boxes), 2 bottles of Purell, and 5 cuisines later, we flew to Hawaii for a “vacation”. This post is part of a series on that trip.

I went tiger hunting. For real. With my kids too. And my husband of course, without whom no tiger hunting excursion would be complete. Ok, not with guns, because that would be SO un-pc, but with cameras. It was a while ago, but of all the places we’ve travelled and the things we have done (more on that later) it was by far one of the coolest. And our family is all about The Coolest Experience.

The Oberoi Vanyavilas Hotel

We were staying at Vanyavilas Hotel in Ranthambore National Park in India, which is also THE coolest hotel I have ever stayed at. (I clearly need to consult an online thesaurus for some synonyms for “cool”.) Our beautiful “rooms” were actually luxury tents–complete with full bathrooms, hardwood floors, and four-poster beds. The service was impeccable, and the food was fresh and delicious. The following is an excerpt from my journal about our 4 days of tiger hunting with our three children ages 8, 11, and 14:

“Despite repeated safaris, and rising ever earlier (5:30am) we spotted no tigers. We saw lots of tiger tracks and poop, heard monkeys’ warning calls and tigers roaring, and spoke to people who heard tigers, but did not actually see tigers. We had the best time, though, on our tiger hunts. It was freezing cold in the early mornings when we got in our open-air safari jeep. We would zoom to the Park about 15 minutes away, risking frostbite to our ears, and the local naturalist assigned to us would jump out to the office “to get our route”. We quickly figured out that the best route was to be had in direct proportion to the tip to the guide the day before. Continue reading →

In June 2011, we had a magical trip to Rome with our three kids. We rented an apartment through Trip Advisor’s Vacation Rental website–which is a leap of faith since you are required to fork over a hefty deposit (through PayPal) and for all we knew the apartment with the “astonishing view” didn’t exist but someone on the other end of my PayPal account was hundreds of dollars richer. Happily, the apartment existed and was everything we had hoped. My TripAdvisor review follows:

The best: The location around the corner from Campo dei Fiori can’t be beat. We went out every morning for coffee and fresh bread, and stocked up for our picnic at the Campo dei Fiori market (open daily except Sundays from about 7am to 2pm). Our teens came and went as necessary and found everything (food, bars, shopping) all within an easy walk. We had daily picnics on the terrace, which has an absolutely wonderful view. As the apartment is small, it made all the difference as a place to relax and (of course!) have a glass of wine.